1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical packet switching apparatus for sending out received optical packets by switching the path for the destination of the optical packet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the switching (routing) of optical packet signals such as 1 GEther (1 Gigabit Ethernet (registered trademark)) and 10 GEther (10 Gigabit Ethernet), the conventional method has been such that the optical packet signals are once converted to electrical signals before the switching is done by the use of an electric memory. However, in recent years, the IP (Internet protocol) traffic has been increasing at an accelerated pace with the increased distributions of the Internet, image signals, and the like. As a result, the required switching capacity is also increasing, and it is considered from the viewpoint of device scale and power consumption that the packet switching via electric memory will come to its limit in the near future.
Under these circumstances, optical packet switching apparatuses that send out inputted optical packets directly as optical signals without being converted into electrical signals are proposed in recent years (See Reference (1) in the following Related Art List, for instance).